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Apothecary Hiel of the Qiraji
=Physical Description= Hiel is a small (by human standards), unassuming female, standing at 5'7". While the height may be typical of most Azeroth humans, it is her emaciated figure that reveals something different about her nature with sunken features. She is typically dressed in dark robes with hood pulled up to conceal her face. Hiel carries with her two items commonly seen; a lantern and a satchel containing her apothecary items. The style of robes she wears is not a fashion commonly found on Azeroth; covered in strange runes and sigils, and upon close inspection her long, flowing cape seems to be made of some sort of skin. A trained skinner could deduce that it is in reality the skin of a humanoid, most likely human. The woman carries no visible weapons, though she is sometimes followed by a ghoul for protection or another member of the Tonton Macoute. =Personality= Inquisitive, mercurial and obsessive compulsive are words typically associated with the woman. A typical person would find her strange, maybe even slightly mad. Hiel avoids all physical contact with living beings, hence her heavy robes and always wearing gloves. She is a true neutral; seeing the war between Horde and Alliance as petty in the grand scheme of things. From the Burning Legion to the Lich King, Hiel has always remained nuetral in the conflict; using others to sway the natural order of the universe and ensuring neither good nor evil takes hold. Her current mindset in these matters is the side of Light has won many voctories over the years and through the Old Whisperings and her own intuition, Hiel stresses a time is coming soon where the balance will tip and the world will be torn apart as the forces of Darkness struggle to correct balance. =Early Life, the 1st and 2nd War= The being known as Hiel has a history shrouded in mystery and most knowledge of it has been word-of-mouth. Hiel is actually two beings fused into one. She started life as a he, an Orc to be an exact known only as Ghirr. This Orc served under Gul'Dan as a warlock in the first war, but as that event closed he was slain along with most of the other warlocks. Ghirr was now a spirit trapped between worlds, that was until the Second War. Though the new Horde chieftan Ogrim Doomhammer had killed off most of the Orc Warlocks, Gul'Dan had been spared. In exchange Gul'Dan was to create an army for Ogrim, this brought about the first Death Knights. Ghirr had been fused with the body of a fallen Stormwind Knight (name unknown) and went on to wage some of the bloodiest battles during the Second War. While not under direct control, Hiel was still influenced by Gul'Dan and was forced to explore her own nature on several occaisions. Was she an entirely new being? Or did she retain aspects of both the fallen Orc Warlock and the Stormwind Knight? Was she a he? With these questions plaguing her mind, her combat efectiveness was reduced and if it was not for the end of the Second War she too would have become a victim of violence. =Exodus= It was sometime after the death of Gul'dan that most of the Death Knights had retreated through the Dark Portal. Hiel however, remained on Azeroth. Overcome with madness due to the trasnformation into Death Knight and the Second War; Hiel hid herself away from the eyes of the world. For nearly 20 years, the Death Knight locked herself into a meditative trance; sinking into one of the many bogs within the Swamp of Sorrows. Mind now at peace, she slept. Hiel came to grips with her dualilty and form and decided it would be best to remain buried in the murk for eternity. =The Old Whisperings= At least that would have been the case if it were not for the voices she heard in her slumber. The gates of Ahn'Qiraj had been opened and the Old God C'Thun slain, at least that is what the heroes of that time thought. Instead the god had merely been temporarily set back. C'Thun called out, reaching the likes of the Ogre Cho'gall of the Twilight's Hammer and even the sleeping Death Knight Hiel. For the first time in nearly two decades the Death Knight crawled out from the bog and made her way to Silithus where the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj remained. Cho'gall had just been defeated but the whispers did not stop. Few Qiraji remained at the ruins, but what Hiel discovered was that she could pass through unmolested; even finding herself speaking in tongues to the strange creatures and understanding the Qiraji language. With the whisperings guiding her as well as her own knowledge of the dark arts; Hiel went about creating items, potions and objects of power for one single use: to form the Tonton Macoute. =Assembling the Tonton Macoute= Hiel was no fool. She knew the whisperings of C'Thun were a clear road to madness and death. Instead she used the knowledge gained to try and right some of the wrong she had done in the past. Studying forgotten lore and inscriptions left by the Qiraji; Hiel discovered the ebb and flow of the world and that balance had to be maintained. While groups such as the Cenarion were doing their best; it was not enough. They fought back the Qiraji, the Burning Legion and now were fighting the Scourge. The Light was tipping the scales. She would have to assemble a group of all beliefs, a council of Light and Dark to work from the shadows to ensure balance was maintained. The Death Knight tapped into more whispers, gods old and new, religions of Light and madness. With the power bestowed upon her by C'Thun she recruited Qiraji agents as well as Silithid workers to begin rebuilding a small portion of the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj and then she set out in the world to recruit more into her group that she named the Tonton Macoute. The first culled into the ranks wer would be two former Death Knights of the Ebon Blade, a curious duo to Hiel since she was a much older Death Knight of a different breed. Lady Drevik and Mistress Larvae shared an insatiable lust for battle and conquest and it would be these two Hiel would give command to. Drevik was named the Brood Queen; a leader of the Tonton Macoute who would direct others in terms of combat and warfare with Larvae as Drevik's second in command. These two would become dark agents for the Tonton Macoute; ensuring the forces of Light never gained a strong foothold. The other side of the coin would also be attended to, with agents of Light battling the forces of Darkness; all while Hiel directed from the sidelines, writing volumes about each task fulfilled and storing them within the rebuilt section of Ahn'Qiraj. Hiel took a complete non-combative role; insteading focusing her abilities on creating items of power of the Tonton Macoute and directing either agents of Light or Dark to their specified deeds. She also became the aopthecary; using strange and more often than not painful methods of healing her followers. =In Hiding and the Whispers Continue= Other than Drevik or Larvae, no one in the Tonton Macoute nor outside knows of Hiel's true role. She sometimes ventures out of Ahn'Qiraj in search of rare items for her projects as well as research work in order to gain information on both sides of any current struggle Azeroth faces. When she is approached she is usually dismissed as a strange mystic and sometimes a Knight of the Ebon Blade, never has she admitted to anyone of being anything else but. Not even her two leaders know of her true Death Knight heritage. Hiel still communicates with C'Thun on a regular basis, forever resisting his attempts to sway her to the side of evil; though she can and has plotted out resurrecting the Old God if the hand of Light grips Azeroth too tight. Order must be maintained. A new voice in the past year has also whispered her name, something deep within the bowels of Azeroth. Hiel has yet to pinpoint who or what the whispers may be coming from; but she feels that the time is near when this voice will reveal itself to her and the entire world; causing chaos so widespread that her, the Tonton Macoute and all of Azeroth will be needed to restore order after the impending storm. =Items of Interest and Abilities= As an apothecary, Hiel carries with her several items for research as well as strange and seemingly alien articfacts not native to Azeroth. Most of these were created through obscure magical rituals and relics excavated from the ruins of Ahn'Qiraj; including living organisms. Through studying the hive-mind of the Silithid and the bizarre nature of the Qiraji; Hiel has developed unique methods of healing her followers should they become fatally wounded. These methods are usually very painful to the subject and sometimes even transform or mutilate the patient upon the table. Those not initiated in the Tonton Macoute wound find her methods horrifying and worse still, research subjects have been known to die by her hands; some of these brought to life again as ghouls to assist Hiel in her experiments or for protection. It is also this experimentation that has cursed Hiel with a terrible blight. After years of examining strange creatures, sleeping in the Swamp of Sorrows and her own Death Knight nature; Hiel has become walking contagion. She avoids skin-to-skin contact at all times with others or they may be subjected to a currently uncurable disease that involves fevers, convulsions, madness and then finally death. Hiel shares many of the same abilities as the Scourge created Death Knights.